Americans Can Fight Bigotry Without Trump's Help

[EasyAce]

The president's appalling equivocation on Charlottesville is strengthening private moral forces
By Shikha Dalmia
http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/22/americans-can-fight-bigotry-without-trum/print

One big danger with modern-day presidents has been that they are too eager to improve the nation's
moral health. They either hector the country to atone for its past sins (Barack Obama). Or they aggressively
push it to the promised land of moral perfection (Teddy Roosevelt who declared that he would do "battle for
the Lord" to improve mankind during his term). But President Trump's antics since the neo-Nazi rally in
Charlottesville confirm that with him we face the opposite danger: He will destroy the moral progress this
country has made over the last 250 years.

Fortunately, ordinary Americans are waking up to that reality and rather than looking to the alleged conscience-
in-chief to beat back the rising tide of racism and bigotry, they are taking matters in their own hands. This may
well prove to be a healthy development that will strengthen national morality by decentralizing it.

America's founders were suspicious of presidents playing moral hero; James Madison even maintained that a
president should have "no particle of spiritual jurisdiction." But not in their wildest dreams could they have
imagined that the country would one day be led by a moral moron who not only lacks moral common sense
but also any feeling for this country's moral history . . .

. . . The best thing about the Trump presidency might be that he is mobilizing America's latent moral forces
beyond the band of professional activists. If excessive presidential moralism extinguished them, Trump's
massive moral abdication may reignite them.

[dfwgator]

 

[EasyAce]

*chuckle* Tell us how you really feel. ;)

[goatprairie]

One of the biggest cons foisted by the left is that bigotry from the right is a huge problem affecting the growth and health of liberal pet minority groups.
The fact is racism and bigotry from the right is less than one percent of the problems of black people. The KKK, Nazis, and other WNs are a tiny group of misbegotten misfits and losers. They have little to no effect on the lives of 99.999% of minorities.
The biggest problem concerning hate and bigotry comes from the left who have mounted a campaign to demonize all right wingers and anybody who doesn't toe the lib/leftist Dem Party line.